While many French nuclear reactors are closed, Germany has announced that two plants in the south of the country will remain operational this winter.
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Germany confirms its commitment to nuclear power to deal with the energy crisis. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced on Tuesday, September 27, that two German nuclear power plants would remain operational through the winter of 2023, due to the unavailability of many French reactors. To secure the energy supply in Germany, “The Isar 2 power plant (near Munich) and the one in Neckarwestheim (southwest) will remain connected in the first quarter of 2023”on account of “The situation in France is worse than expected”he said at a press conference in Berlin.
The Minister of the Environment thus goes beyond what was planned a few weeks ago: on September 5 he announced that he wanted to keep these two plants on standby until the spring of 2023, and use them as a last resort, in the event of an accident. energy emergency.
But based on the electricity scenarios for the winter in France, presented on September 14, Robert Habeck estimated that the situation was worse than expected so far. Driving the point home, he claimed that “in the past, the statements of the operator EDF have often turned out to be too positive”.
The decision to expand these two German plants confirms the change of attitude already given on September 5 by the Minister of the Environment, whose party is historically deeply anti-nuclear. Robert Habeck then returned to its scheduled final closure at the end of 2022, according to a nuclear phase-out schedule decided by Angela Merkel after Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011.